The Cause of the Canonisation of John Henry Cardinal Newman

During his trip to Oxford, Jack Sullivan and his wife Carol were staying at Littlemore, in the ‘College’ where Newman lived from 1842 to 1845. Littlemore was part of the parish of the Oxford University church, so Newman had pastoral responsibilities there too. He built a school, a new church, and finally converted some stables [...]

Indeed, Pope Benedict may believe that the liturgical and spiritual tradition embodied in these Anglican communities has preserved things of importance which English-speaking Roman Catholicism, at the present time, typically repudiates or fails to understand. Perhaps Pope Benedict envisages that such impoverishment will be challenged, and even overcome, when exposed to the authentically Catholic elements which he is allowing former Anglican communities to maintain?

On Thursday evening Jack was the guest of honour at a dinner in Trinity College, given by College President Sir Ivor Roberts. Newman was an undergraduate at Trinity in 1817, before winning a Fellowship at Oriel College in 1822. In 1887 Trinity elected Newman to its very first honorary fellowship. Present at the dinner was Princess Michael of Kent, a Newman devotee and friend of the Birmingham Oratory. Among other guests were the Catholic Chaplain to the University, Father John Moffatt, S.J., and Father Paul Chavasse, Actor of Newman’s Cause and Provost of the Birmingham Oratory.

Jack Sullivan has visited the Birmingham Oratory in England, the focus of his week-long stay in England. On Wednesday morning, Jack, with his wife Carol, visited Rednal, where Newman was buried among his Oratorian brethren. Jack also visited the Oratory Primary School, where he was interviewed by some of the pupils. He then came to the Oratory, on the Hagley Road, where Newman lived from 1852-1890.

At the Brompton Oratory in London, hundreds of people from all over England came yesterday (10th November) to hear the powerful testimony of Deacon Jack Sullivan, whose healing through Newman’s intercession will culminate in his Beatification next year.

Reverend Jack Sullivan, the Boston deacon healed through Cardinal Newman’s intercession, has spoken of the importance of Newman’s spiritual message in a sermon at Mass in London’s Westminster Cathedral on Monday 9th November. Deacon Sullivan was preaching on the first full day of a week-long visit to England, anticipating Newman’s Beatification next year.

In the midsummer of the year 2000 I was told by a surgeon at a Boston Hospital, after he had analysed scans of my spine, that I needed immediate surgery and that paralysis could be imminent. The surgeon said mine was the worst case he’d seen in 17 years. I was so despondent, because I had worked hard in my diaconate classes, and now it seemed that I would be unable to return to them. At that moment things were very bleak. Watching EWTN [an American Catholic television network] that same day, I saw two priests discussing Cardinal Newman…

Deacon Jack Sullivan, whose miraculous healing in 2001 is the basis for Newman’s Beatification next year, is to visit the Birmingham Oratory (UK) this week, in a event which the Boston deacon has said will be ‘the greatest moment of my life’. His wife Carol will be accompanying him throughout the visit.